Listen to Roger Waters’ New Track, ‘Supremacy’

As a protest of President Donald Trump's controversial decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital and move the U.S. embassy to there from Tel Aviv, Roger Waters has recorded himself reciting part of Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish's "The Penultimate Speech of the 'Red Indian' to the White Man." With musical backing by Le Trio Joubran, a group of oud-playing brothers, he's released it as "Supremacy," and you can listen to it below.

"Le Trio Joubran and I have collaborated to perform an excerpt from an epic poem by the great Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish," Waters wrote on Facebook. "On the surface it narrates the last speech of the Native American to The White Man, but it speaks also to Darwish's beloved Palestine, and its indigenous people, in fact to all victims of settler colonialism everywhere."

"We have been touring the world with our ouds for the past 15 years, taking with us – from city to city – a bit of Palestine," the band said in a statement reprinted by Rolling Stone. "We honor the struggles of indigenous peoples across the globe, and through our art, affirm that the relationship between people, culture and their homeland survives history."

Back in December, Trump broke with longstanding U.S. policy and acknowledged Jerusalem as the capital, one of his campaign promises. The act was widely criticized as being detrimental to the Middle East peace process, given Jerusalem's status as a divided city. Waters and Le Trio Joubran recorded their parts in London and Paris shortly after Trump's declaration. The release of the video coincides with the 70th anniversary of the exodus of more than 700,000 Palestinians during Israel's War of Independence.

Earlier today, Waters' guitarist, Jonathan Wilson, said that the in-concert anti-Trump messages didn't go over as badly as he had thought on last year's Us + Them tour. “We were expecting more of a push back and more of a negative vibe when we were rolling into Kansas City or into Texas or wherever this tour went,” he said. “But to be honest, there was [only] a little bit of that. You’d get some people flashing you the bird and screaming and hollering, throwing shit onstage. Like, somebody threw a pretzel at me once. But basically, that wasn’t enough for them to walk out. They had to get their classic rock fix.”